This is the first in a series of blogs on sales challenges and customer engagement. This installment describes how a comprehensive customer relationship management system allows your sales organization to create tangible value and realize significant return on investment.

A New Era of Sales Challenges

Today’s sales climate is radically different than 20 or even 10 years ago, bringing in a new era of sales challenges. Seasoned sales professionals have seen a shift in the balance of power in sales engagements. With easier access to multiple channels, prospects now often dictate the terms of engagements and have easy access to a wealth of information on sellers, products and pricing. Social media channels also have opened wholly new information sources to buyers, who can now access ratings, reviews, and recommendations on products and sellers.

This increases the pressure on sales organizations to reflect a positive market image and brand.

Many organizations are challenged to justify investments in tools for Sales Force Automation (SFA)/Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The old management adage, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” still rings true today. Decisions around CRM for years have been made by hurried managers who operate on gut feelings. They know what they need, but it’s often difficult to define, thus making it more difficult to justify. The good news is there is a solution that has been field tested by world class organizations and measurable ROI is available.

The Solution

SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales is a state-of-the-art Sales Force Automation solution built by and for sales professionals, with native collaboration capabilities and an intuitive user interface tuned to the needs of today’s sales environment. Since the solution is built on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform, you get the speed of true real-time information and analytics with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of the cloud.

Advantages

For many mid-market organizations, cloud deployments put advanced SFA/CRM capabilities in reach for the first time, providing the ideal mix of streamlined accessibility, collaboration, advanced functionality, and total cost of ownership. These capabilities deliver significant advantages for enhancing the relationships you build with your clients and prospects which can drive meaningful value to the organization. These advantages include:

Increased sales due to better visibility – The combination of cloud deployment and mobile access improves visibility into customer needs and helps drive quality engagements and more sales.

Improved efficiency of sales team members – Because the entire sales organization has on-demand access to the latest updates and statuses on each engagement, they can build consensus on priorities, better coordinate their efforts, and improve collaboration.

Improved collaboration between sales reps, sales managers and sales directors – Customer-facing reps and sales management can share information more readily and adhere to established processes.

Improved time to closure – Simplified data submission and improved visibility helps eliminate bottlenecks and delays in the sales cycle, accelerating the time to closure.

Time savings on report creation – Sales personnel and management can generate and customize reports without the intervention of IT staff.

Savings from retired legacy systems – Organizations can reduce hardware, support and maintenance costs while gaining access to the latest functionality.

Creating Value, Maximizing ROI

In 2014, SAP commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examined the potential return on investment (ROI) that enterprises may realize by deploying SAP Cloud for Sales. The purpose of this study was to provide a framework for evaluating the potential financial impact of SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales on their organizations. The analysis found that the companies who deployed SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales experienced the following value:

Ultimately, the value a sales organization realizes from its investment in SAP Hybris Cloud for Sales largely depends on the experience and expertise of the solution provider it chooses. So remember, it is critical that the provider you choose can deliver the optimum combination of expertise in SAP functionality, industry-specific processes and challenges, and successful Cloud deployments. This will ensure that you will be well positioned to create substantial value in this new era of sales challenges.